LADY.

But what if I should tell you my maid was with me!

TINSEL.

Vapours! vapours! pray, my dear' widow, will you answer me one question? Had you ever this noise of a drum in your head, all the while your husband was living?

LADY.

And, pray, Mr. Tinsel, will you let me ask you another question? Do you think we can hear in the country, as well as you do in town?

TINSEL.

Believe me, Madam, I could prescribe you a cure for these imaginations.

ABIGAIL.

Don't tell my lady of imaginations, Sir, I have heard it myself.

TINSEL.

Hark thee, child-art thou not an old maid?

Whims! freaks! megrims! indeed, Mrs. Abigail.

ABIGAIL.

Marry, Sir, by your tal

one would believe you thought every thing that was good is a megrim.

LADY.

Why, truly, I don't very well understand what you

meant by your doctrine to me in the garden just now, that every thing we saw was made by chance.

ABIGAIL.

A very pretty subject indeed for a lover to divert his mistress with..

LADY.

But I suppose that was only a taste of the conversation you would entertain me with after marriage.

TINSEL.

Oh, I shall then have time to read you such lectures of motions, atoms, and nature-that you shall learn to think as freely as the best of us, and be convinced, in less than a month, that all about us is chance-work.

LADY.

You are a very complaisant person indeed; and so you would make your court to me, by persuading me that I was made by chance!

TINSEL.

Ha ha ha! well said, my dear! why, faith, thou wert a very lucky hit, that's certain.

LADY.

Pray, Mr. Tinsel, where did you learn this odd way of talking?

TINSEL.

Ah, widow, 'tis your country innocence makes you think it an odd way of talking.

LADY.

Though you give no credit to stories of apparitions, I hope you believe there are such things as spirits!

TINSEL.

Simplicity!

ABIGAIL.

I fancy you don't believe women have souls, d'ye Sir?

Foolish enough!

TINSEL.

LADY.

I vow, Mr. Tinsel, I'm afraid malicious people will say I'm in love with an atheist.

TINSEL

Oh, my dear, that's an old-fashion'd word-I'm a Freethinker, child.

ABIGAIL.

I'm sure you are a free speaker!

LADY.

Really, Mr. Tinsel, considering that you are so fine a gentleman, I'm amaz'd where you got all this learning! I wonder it has not spoil'd your breeding.

TINSEL.

To tell you the truth, I have not time to look into these dry matters myself, but I am convinc'd by four or five learned men, whom I sometimes overhear at a coffee-house I frequent, that our forefathers were a pack of asses, that the world has been in an error for some thousands of years, and that all the people upon earth, excepting those two or three worthy gentlemen, are impos'd upon, cheated, bubbled, abus'd, bamboozled

7

ABIGAIL.

Madam, how can you hear such a profligate? he talks like the London prodigal.

LADY.

Why, really, I'm a thinking, if there be no such things as spirits, a woman has no occasion for marryingShe need not be afraid to lie by herself.

TINSEL.

Ah! my dear! are husbands good for nothing but to frighten away spirits? Dost thou think I could not instruct thee in several other comforts of matrimony?

LADY.

Ah! but you are a man of so much knowledge, that you would always be laughing at my ignorance: -You learned men are so apt to despise one!

TINSEL.

No, child! I'd teach thee my principles, thou should'st be as wise as I am in a week's time.

LADY.

Do you think your principles would make a woman the better wife?

TINSEL.

Prithee, widow, don't be queer.

LADY,

I love a gay temper, but I would not have you rally things that are serious.

TINSEL.

Well enough, faith! where's the jest of rallying any thing else?

ABIGAIL.

Ah! Madam, did you ever hear Mr. Fantome talk at this rate?

TINSEL.

[Aside.

But where's this ghost! this son of a whore of a Drummer? I'd fain hear him methinks.

ABIGAIL.

Pray, Madam, don't suffer him to give t ghost such ill language, especially when you have reason to believe it is my master. J

TINSEL.

That's well enough, faith, Nab; dost thou think thy master is so unreasonable, as to continue his claim to his relict after his bones are laid? Pray, widow, remember the words of your contract, you have fulfill'd. them to a tittleDid not you marry Sir George to the tune of, till death us do part?'......

LADY.

I must not hear Sir George's memory treated in so slight a manner-This fellow must have been at some pains to make himself such a finish'd coxcomb. [Aside.

TINSEL.

Give me but possession of your person, and I'll whirl you up to town for a winter, and cure you at once. Oh! I have known many a country lady come to London with frightful stories of the hall-house being haunted, of fairies, spirits, and witches; that by the time she had seen a comedy, play'd at an assembly, and ambled in a ball or two, has been so little afraid of bugbears, that she has ventur'd home in a chair at all hours of the night.